Wednesday 19 October 2005

Pic of the day: In the anime Miracle Girls, two twins can read each other's thoughts (among other things). But in the real world this kind of thing doesn't happen. Or...?

Coincidence?

The October issue of Scientific American has arrived in Norway some days ago, and I picked it up. I tend to pick up most of the issues, as there is almost always something interesting. This time there was an article about "founder mutations". These are mutations that occur so rarely that all people who have them are related, or at the very least there are only a few different bloodlines. Finding out who is carrying these genes is not only useful from a medical point of view: It also lets science track the migrations of groups of humans over time. Quite interesting.

But the thing that struck me when I started reading was one word, the name of the example they had picked of an arch-typical founder mutation. It is responsible for an increased ability to retain iron in the body, sometimes useful, but in double doses it can cause a wide range of symptoms late in life. ("Late in life" as in not before 40, so you have already passed on your genes.) The disease is called HEMOCHROMATOSIS.

Fast backward to September 30. Allow me to hotlink to my livejournal, where I write quick and dirty snippets of what goes on in my life and / or head. Some of it makes its way here, other things don't. Anyway, notice my third entry this day.

Yes, that's right. At the point in time where Scientific American's October issue is being put up for sale in its core market, I suddenly out of the blue develop an interest in a disease I haven't heard about before and cannot even spell correctly, but which happens to be in the cover article of that issue. "The thing that from time to time concerns me is that my subconscious seems to know a lot more than I." Indeed.